Where's Our Woodstock?
Where’s Our Woodstock?
Written By Kat Boskovic
Photographed by Alexa Lunney
I hate to break it to you, but your most beloved actors, musicians, and comedians have all likely done hard drugs. Netflix even recorded it.
In the mixed-reviewed documentary Have A Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics, celebrities recount their wildest psychedelic experiences—some profound, but most ridiculous. Carrie Fisher was photographed nude by paparazzi. Sarah Silverman groped the face of a homeless man. Sting was indoctrinated into a Mexican desert peyote cult. The documentary paints psychedelics as chaotic, mind-altering, and deeply tied to self-exploration—whether that leads to spiritual enlightenment or just an embarrassing headline. What it fails to mention is the deeply political potential of acid.
Initially legal in the Swinging Sixties, psychedelics rose in popularity for the obvious reasons: mystical discovery, ego death, and a deeper connection to the threads of the universe. But these drugs also played a significant role in the counterculture of the Cold War, post-nuclear family era. The United States’ involvement in Vietnam was escalating, the Red Scare persisted, The Feminine Mystique was published, and both Martin Luther King and Malcom X were assassinated. This led to great civil unrest, particularly among younger generations as universities became hotbeds for activism. The psychedelic movement became inherently political, for it encouraged free thought and rejection of mainstream values. Harvard University psychologists even promoted hallucinogens as a medium to expand consciousness and pushed the idea of “turn on, tune in, drop out,” that became the rallying cry of the psychedelic movement—to open your mind, connect with the natural world, and escape rigid western institutions. The Supreme Court unanimously voted for the strike-down of anti-interracial marriage laws across all states. Contraception became federally legal for married couples. Educational discrimination and employment discrimination were both banned. Racial discrimination became prohibited in voting booths. The hippies of the sixties, through mind-altering mushrooms, LSD, and peyote, had taken great strides towards progressivity in our country.
Chef and author Anthony Bourdain, when interviewed for Have A Good Trip, explained his frustration that he had been too young to embrace the psychedelic movement he had observed in newspapers and on television as a preteen. “I had read about them in Life Magazine when I was nine and ten years old, and that looked really good,” he explained with disappointment. “People are jumping out windows. It must be interesting.”
And, as far as media portrayal is concerned, it was interesting. Headlines screamed in bold print that a teenager had jumped off of a rooftop in an attempt to fly, a man had stabbed his friend while hallucinating, and a woman on LSD convinced herself she could converse with animals, but these sensationalist articles that mystified the masses, including young Bourdain himself, only reduced the broader sentiment of 1960s counterculture to mere youthful chaos or rebellion. Psychedelics, when viewed through a solely recreational lens, are stripped of their deeper sociopolitical context, and we lose the pivotal role these drugs played in challenging established norms through movements of civil-rights advocacy and environmental consciousness. Despite their controversial reputation, these mind-altering substances were, for many, integral to a period of introspection and activism that reshaped societal ideals, even if we rarely give the era the credit it deserves in driving forward profound sociopolitical change. And that is precisely the problem: As we see a modern resurgence of hallucinogens, we are met with our very own ignorance of their political potential.
To anyone with a sliver of empathy, the current American political scene is abysmal. Three years ago, women witnessed their right to bodily autonomy stripped away by the Supreme Court. Every day, undocumented immigrants by the hundreds are either rounded up into modern-day concentration camps or deported altogether. The Department of Education eliminated Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives. What’s more, the United States has pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord, our president posted an AI-generated video planning to gentrify a genocided Gaza into a string of beachside resorts, and the Head of Government Efficiency even performed the Nazi salute after his speech at the presidential inauguration. In an era of psychedelic revival, we need the counterculture of the Swinging Sixties more than ever.
Except today, psychedelics have become a mere escape. There is no fathomable reason for Sting to fly out to a remote desert in Mexico and douse himself in deer’s blood on a brutal hike up a mountain high on peyote if not for escapism, nor is there a fathomable reason for Carrie Fisher to film herself nude, tripping on acid, on a beach in the Seychelles if not for escapism. Psychedelics may be making a comeback, but they’re wearing a suit and tie; instead of hippies advocating for ego death, we have Silicon Valley executives microdosing for peak performance. Instead of students tripping in protests, we have ketamine therapy clinics promising to “biohack” your depression. The revolution is being repackaged, stripped of its anti-establishment roots, and sold back to us as a mental health tool, a self-improvement strategy, or worse—a workplace performance enhancer.
Today, psychedelics are all about turning off, tuning out, and keeping up. The resurgence of LSD and mescaline and psilocybin isn’t about rejecting the rat race, but squeezing out more productivity from the rats racing. Need to stay focused? Try microdosing! Can’t handle burnout? Ketamine therapy! Last year, online tech company networking site Built In even published an article titled “Five Reasons to Consider Microdosing at Work,” going on to argue that “microdosing psychedelics offers a unique opportunity to enhance cognitive function, particularly in areas related to creativity and problem solving.” In season three of Riverdale, a writer’s block-plagued Jughead takes mushrooms and chains himself to his desk to finish his manuscript, so impressionable twelve-year-old me, never seen without her pen and notebook, became obsessed with the idea of taking psychedelics and chaining myself in front of my keyboard for the purpose of productivity. Instead of being marketed as a means to “see the world differently,” they are marketed as a method to “unlock your potential.” With this commodification, psychedelics are weaponized to ensure we don’t crash under the weight of hustle culture, rather than rejecting the hustle in favor of progress.
There’s no denying that psychedelics hold monumental potential for healing and self-discovery. But when the same drugs that fueled anti-establishment movements are now being pitched as a performance-enhancing supplement, does the consumer or the corporation benefit? Psychedelics don’t contain an inherently revolutionary chemical element, something between carbon and boron on the periodic table; their revolutionary potential lies within those who use them. The oversaturated graphics and immature humor of Have A Good Trip argue that the real trip isn’t just about what you take, but where it takes you. But where can the trip take us?
